One year into the Covid-19 pandemic, Zoom fatigue is very much a real thing.
Stanford researchers have identified design flaws in Zoom and other video conferencing platforms that are exhausting our mind and body, like the excessive amount of close up eye contact required in video calls, the lack of mobility, and constantly seeing yourself in real-time video.
Jeremy Bailenson, the founding director of the Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab, noted in the study that "just because you can use video doesn’t mean you have to."
To reduce Zoom fatigue and keep you untethered from your computer during work calls, new startup Spot has launched to usher in a revolution of walking work meetings.
Spot, led by Chicagoan Greg Caplan, the founder of Remote Year, is a workplace communication tool that's audio only. Users send a Spot Link via calendar invite just as you would with Zoom or Microsoft Teams, but instead of sitting down for a video call, users are able to put on their headphones and put their phone in their pocket. Spot records the call, and uses a virtual assistant to take notes. Users can say "Spot, fetch" (or press a button on the screen) and Spot will automatically transcribe the last 40 seconds of the call.
Spot also has a collaborative notes section where attendees can write out the meeting's agenda and jot down other notes in real time.
The idea, Caplan said, is to give people the freedom to walk and talk, which in turn can lead to more creativity, more energy, and a more productive meeting.
"We want people to put their phones in their pockets and focus on the conversation," Caplan said. "Over time, a lot of people have started to cripple under what's now known as Zoom fatigue. It's just really exhausting mentally, physically and emotionally to be sitting on these video calls all day long."
To help launch the business, Spot raised $1.9 million this week in a round led by L.A. VC firm Chapter One. Other backers include Village Global, Signia VC, Great Oaks VC and Starting Line, a Chicago VC firm led by Ezra Galston.
Spot officially entered its beta phase last week, and there are a handful of early users on the platform. Caplan said Spot plans to monetize by offering premium features down the line based on customer demand.
Spot aims to be an improved collaboration tool for remote workers, an area Caplan is very familiar with. In 2015 Caplan founded Remote Year, a Chicago travel startup that helps people work remotely while traveling the world. It offers 4-, 6- and 12-month programs that make working remotely while traveling abroad more accessible for employees. It was among the companies that was hit especially hard during the pandemic as foreign travel was effectively shut down for much of 2020. The startup had to lay off nearly all of its employees.
Remote Year has since been acquired by Selina, a global hospitality brand, which plans to launch new Remote Year programs this year, Caplan said.
Now with Spot, Caplan is continuing his quest to make remote work effective and accessible for the masses.
"I’ve been shouting about remote work for a long, long time," Caplan said. "It frees up people to work when, where and how they want. It's just an incredibly democratizing, powerful force for good in the world."
